When I’m traveling for business or when giving talks I usually try to visit everything I can that is hobby related. I stop at shops, wholesalers and manufacturers to see what is new and interesting. Truth be told, I rarely stop at any public aquariums as unfortunately to me most seem more focused on having large marine mammals as their key exhibits and these are just not that exciting for me to see.
是的,我知道我是一个礁怪胎。然而,在我的trip out west to speak at the west coast Reefapalooza, Leng Sy talked me into going to the Aquarium of the Pacific, aka The Long Beach Aquarium. He is friends with the curator, Sandy Trautwein, who was kind enough to show us around, give us a behind the scenes tour and also talk about how she would like to develop more of a relationship with the countless reef hobbyists in the area. I found her interest in working with hobbyists interesting and will discuss it more below.
Sandy has separated the aquarium into three sections and has three gentleman coordinating and managing each of these sections. Danny Munoz runs the tropical Pacific section, which is obviously the one nearest to our hearts. Chris Plante is curator for the California section, which deals with animals from around this part of the Pacific and Nate Jaros manages the Northern Pacific gallery, ie. the cold water section of the Pacific. So while my interest is exclusively on tropical animals, it was still interesting to see that the aquarium has something for just about everyone and that there could be an opportunity for hobbyist involvement in a wide variety of ways.
An indication of Sandy and the aquarium’s understanding of how much our hobby has grown and how successful we have gotten is in evidence when you first walk into the aquarium.Earlier this year the 10,000 plus gallon “reef tank” was converted from one containing nothing but fiberglass replicas of living coral to one which now houses several hundred live colonies and frags of sps corals as well as schools of reef safe fish.
这个坦克是他们最初与业余爱好者的参与，因为业余爱好者向他们提供了坦克中的许多珊瑚，以帮助填补坦克，或者因为殖民地本身对于所有者的坦克来说太大了。虽然坦克仍处于填充的早期阶段，但看到公共水族馆改变了长期的展示练习，并变得更加适应了爱好者喜欢的东西，仍然令人振奋。
尽管此前显示仅持续了很短的时间，但热带地区的各种显示器已经持续了很长时间。我必须承认，我在公共水族馆中看到的礁石显示器很少给我留下了深刻的印象，但是这里的主要礁石是出于两个原因。
First, unlike most it was not just a wall of coral set up like a fruit stand for display.它具有深度，并且缺乏更好的单词纹理。也与大多数不同，不仅仅是Acropora, but rather it houses huge colonies ofPocillopora,Montipora和Turbinariato name a few of the colonies in it, at sizes that only a few of us can dream of housing in our tanks.
我还能够看到几年前坦克的样子，以及该坦克中珊瑚的生长，尤其是在坦克中心主导的粉红色pocillopora令人印象深刻。该坦克还装有一些很棒的鱼，例如一对黑色唐人，我以前只看到了这对。
该坦克并不完美，因为在某些地方有Majano海葵爆发，但是坦克的这一方面和其他方面是一个很好的例子，说明了业余爱好者可以参与其中。我们大多数人只梦想着在一个真正的大型坦克上工作。除了这个坦克外，还有许多其他礁石坦克，大多数业余爱好者都会发现有趣的礁石，包括接收天然阳光的室外礁。因此，有一个坦克可以掩盖每个人对爱好的兴趣。
但是，这个大型展示箱只是我认为你们中许多人会发现有趣的一部分。该坦克周围是众多较小的坦克，这些坦克在我们的礁石坦克中存放着许多其他类型的动物，使我们保持着爱好。一个坦克拥有许多大型SPS珊瑚的殖民地，但这不是坦克的主要重点。
Upon looking closely at the corals you quickly see that each coral houses a pair or more of the symbiotic coral crabs that are beneficial to the corals themselves.These crabs are a particular interest of Sandy, as she got her PH.D on better understanding them. In speaking with her and Danny, they would love to get them to breed and raise the offspring, but due to time constraints this is not possible. Once again here is an opportunity for a hobbyist.
Propagating new animals is one of the hallmarks of the hobby now, as we have gotten good enough at keeping things alive that we have now moved on to trying to propagate many of our animals and fortunately we are meeting with greater and greater success. In this regard the Aquarium of the Pacific is already successfully breeding and raising flamboyant cuttlefish, so much so that they are trading and sending the offspring to other AZA aquariums.
But this success is making them want to do more. In addition to the coral tanks, they also have a large anemone tank, housing many different types of anemones as well as clownfish. But to date, they are not getting them to reproduce. Once again our expertise could help them and at least to me that would be a fun activity to be involved in.在与Danny交谈时，他们还希望更多地参与柔软和石质的传播珊瑚。
With numerous hobbyists already doing this, to me this seems like a perfect area where hobbyist involvement would be a perfect fit. I should point out, that all work propagating corals as well as the other invertebrates here is done so that the propagated animals can be traded or given to other AZA accredited institutions.抱歉，您不会带您传播回家。但是，对于我们大多数人来说，仍然能够传播我们的动物，仍然有一种巨大的成就感。
The aquarium also houses several other tanks that will delight most of us reef lovers.They have one tank dominated by non-photosynthetic corals that was amazing to me a heretofore strictly a sun-loving coral guy.They also have a large tank housing many different species of anthias, still a group of fish that many of us find difficult to keep for the long-term.
And they also have enough displays of specific fish and inverts, that there will be something to pique the interest of any hobbyist out there.如果没有其他参与水族馆可以为业余爱好者带来直接学习世界一流水族馆所做的事情，以使其如此成功地保持鱼类和珊瑚的作用。
Since leafy seadragons are no longer collected and sold, the weedy and leafy sea dragons displayed at the aquarium are probably some of the last ones we will see in captivity until someone successfully learns how to breed them. The Aquarium of the Pacific was the first U.S. public aquarium that successfully cultured weedy seadragons, but to date, public aquariums have been unable to breed leafy sea dragons.
This is currently quite baffling, since it is now possible to breed and raise virtually all of their cousins. They are working quite diligently with other AZA aquariums to try and solve this problem and hopefully will do so in the near future and considering the long-term success they have had in keeping them I have no doubt they will succeed.
The Aquarium of the Pacific has been around since 1998, and if you are like most of us, we tend to take for granted things that are close by. I have been to the Los Angeles area probably at least 30 times over the last 15 years, yet this was my first time visiting the aquarium. As I said at the beginning for the most part I do not go to many public aquariums, but after seeing what is going on there and that Sandy and the rest of the staff have a genuine interest in getting hobbyists more involved, I probably will not only visit there again on my next trip, but will also make it a point to visit some other public aquariums during my travels.
If you are interested in getting involved with some of the work there, especially the time-consuming but fun work of propagating rare fish and corals, then you might want to contact them and see how you can help. I have always enjoyed working on new projects and large tanks, as after doing so it makes working on my own tanks so much easier. And if you can help achieve success in propagating any of the animals there, that too would be one of the great rewards of the hobby. [Aquarium of the Pacific]
